75 U.S. billionaires parked assets in tax haven, including this oilman tight with the Bushes

[TexasTowelie]

Billionaire Hushang Ansary has lived his life at the junction of money and power. Once a member of the Shah of Iran’s inner circle, he later moved to the United States, started an oil business in Texas and eventually became a rainmaker for the Republican Party.

He is a close associate of the Bush family, a donor to their electoral campaigns and has a gallery named after him in George H.W. Bush’s Presidential Library and Museum. He and his wife, Shahla Ansary, also donated $2 million in 2015 to Right to Rise, a political action committee that supported the abortive presidential campaign of the former president’s son, ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

The Iranian-American businessman straddles two worlds. One is inhabited by friends at or near the upper echelons of power in the United States; the other, as alleged in a lawsuit and revealed in a global collaborative reporting project, is the opaque world of offshore finance, where domiciles change regularly and assets are moved by the fabulously wealthy to limit the reach of regulators.

The 95-year-old Ansary, whose wife last year bought a Palm Beach penthouse and cabana for $14 million, is among more than 75 Americans on Forbes’ list of American billionaires with business ties to Luxembourg, a tiny European country whose tax benefits and the alluring promise of relative secrecy have made it a favored destination for the rich and famous to park their assets.

Read more: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/investigations/article248949799.html......

[DFW]

1. You can park money in Luxembourg just like you can park money in Kansas City

But in these days of compliance and more compliance, places that used to be considered tax havens are no longer secure from government prying eyes. Switzerland, Luxembourg, even tiny Liechtenstein--all will bend over backwards to help any foreign country claiming that money there was obtained illegally, or is hiding from taxes. It's a complete 180° from 40 years ago. Switzerland won't even open accounts for non-resident Americans any more. If you had one previously, they called you in to close it and give up any safety deposit boxes you may have been keeping there. People from high-tax neighboring (or almost) countries like Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Italy have found themselves outed long ago if they were hiding money there. Luxembourg, as part of the EU, now complies with EU reporting rules, which include giving the IRS anything they want to know.

Luxembourg may have lower local taxes than neighboring EU countries, but unless you have citizenship or a legal residence you can prove you actually used for at least 183 days out of the year, you can't take advantage of them. Maybe this Persian guy absconded with a fortune out of Iran in 1979, but it's a far different world out there from what it was in the old days. These days, if you have a few billion to your name (or even if you have a lot less), you will have more peace of mind if you declare it, pay any taxes due wherever it is you intend to call home, and sleep soundly at night, knowing there won't be any uniforms banging on your front door at 6 AM the next morning.

[we can do it]

2. I wish I could rec this.

[dawg day]

3. If you had a billion dollars...

Wouldn't you just pay taxes? I mean, we all pay taxes and we don't have a billion left over after. I really don't get it.

[WhiteTara]

4. Only little people pay taxes

Leona Helmsley.